In Trying Times, Email Still Cuts Through the Dissonance in Digital Marketing

Tony D’Anna, CEO, PostUp opines that businesses are quick to sink time and resources into unproven digital marketing trends, hoping to win big by getting in on the ground floor. Nevertheless, these trends have yet to match the stability and ROI of email marketing

In a presidential campaign that was noisier than usual, it seemed like some of the loudest rattlings involved emails. From leaked, hacked and deleted emails to the emails in your inbox begging for campaign donations, it’s hard to go more than three seconds without hearing about email. Unless you look to the digital marketing world, that is.

While the latest social media platforms, novelty features and other shiny new advertising trends hog the limelight, email gets the least notice, yet quietly remains the most reliable channel for a stable, profitable online presence.

Strangely enough, companies do realize this. They consistently cite email marketing as the most effective channel for reaching customers and driving revenue, while also acknowledging that other digital marketing channels are tricky to get right. So why do companies keep getting distracted by every passing fad?

Certainly, the idea of a social media windfall is attractive, but anyone who thinks it will last is looking at things through rose-colored video glasses. As Snapchat ramps up its ad efforts before going public, publishers who can afford the steep entry fee are seeing big returns for the time being. Nevertheless, the pressure is on for the platform as it struggles to shake its novelty image to prove its viability as an investment for companies.

Publishers still have the horror embedded in their collective memory as they watched helplessly as Facebook’s shift to prioritizing personal content over business updates sank their engagement rates. A similar effect from Instagram’s algorithm change signaled the end of organic reach on a platform once heralded for having the highest social engagement of all platforms. Social media now requires significant investment, both in time and money, to successfully reach an audience. With this in mind, it’s hard to ignore email marketing’s ROI of 3800%, harder still to ignore that it's still the fastest-growing channel for ROI.

Nevertheless, reaching an audience isn’t enough; in a data-driven world, getting your audience on board means nothing if you don’t have the right numbers to support your claims of engagement. Facebook’s admission that it inflated its video reporting did little to help their rocky relations with advertisers, but Facebook isn’t alone in providing flawed metrics. Thin, inconsistent reporting capabilities plague many content outlets. From conversions to click rates, the powerful metrics available through email service providers paint a clear picture of email marketing efforts.

Meanwhile, it doesn't take a complex data mining outfit for publishers to know their audience is becoming increasingly mobile. As a result, many companies are turning towards mobile-optimized page coding. Facebook touted its Instant Articles project as a way to optimize user experience and increase readership, but the shine quickly wore off for early adopters as the flat engagement rates failed to offset the loss of monetization. Publishers report more success with Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages, but revenue potential is still limited.

Companies looking to take advantage of mobile opportunities would be best served by refocusing their email efforts. Far from the plain text walls of internet yesteryear, the emails of today are aesthetically pleasing, mobile-responsive and highly personalized. Thanks to mobile devices, people are spending more time with email than ever, providing companies with an ample window for directly reaching customers with a fine-tuned, customized message.

Most importantly, despite having to hear about it nonstop for an entire election cycle, people still really like email. No other internet innovation has been able to change the fact that more people prefer companies to contact them via email than any other method. In an ever-crowded field of digital fads campaigning for their business, people see email marketing as the lesser of an increasing number of evils.

So, don’t get caught up in the noise: exercise your right to choose the proven marketing tools. The future of your company depends on it.

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